Student-centric business incubator points startups in the right direction

September 27, 2017

The goal for the new incubator is to give students the environment to turn ideas like Episo (pictured) and into fully functional business ventures.

Inside the J.D. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship, students are charting their own course.

This eight-suite business center on the West campus of York College of Pennsylvania is now home to a new student-centric business incubator.

“We have our own office,” says Mat Jones, one of four York College students behind the startup company, Episo. “It feels like we’re working for a real company and not just a school project.”

Episo is totally student-built; a development idea presented to the group last year as part of their Senior Software Design 2 course. They quickly accepted the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

“We were all a little overwhelmed,” he says of their decision, “in a good way if that makes sense.”

Episo is a video-based content source, similar to Netflix, for people who aren’t in the mainstream movie scene yet but want to garner a following.

“In the same way that LinkedIn is a more professional place than Facebook,” Mat says, “Episo would be a more professional platform than YouTube.”

The goal for the Center’s new incubator is to give students the environment to turn ideas like Episo into fully functional business ventures.

“We want to promote this culture of entrepreneurship among the students,” says Oscar Winters, associate director of the J.D. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship. “We hope to create a natural cross-collaboration between, for example, the art department and engineering, or business students and communications.”

A noteworthy Community Hack

Travis Jones is a York College junior and sole proprietor of the incubator’s other student business: Provino.

“It’s essentially a digital administrator for small theaters,” he says.

He’s working on a web application that can receive and organize applications from actors and actresses.

“With Provino,” Travis explains, “a theater could view and organize applications or add notes in real-time during auditions or interviews.”